Ed Davey confides on his website that it was his strong views on the environment that first pushed him towards being politically active, so it seems fitting that he now joins the cabinet as the new secretary of state for energy and climate change.

His promotion will be seen as a reward for what is widely viewed as doing a good job at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills where he had responsibility for Royal Mail privatisation, employment relations, consumer policy and competition rules. Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, described Davey as "the right man" to take up from where Chris Huhne had left off.

Davey, who originally foresaw his career prospects being in journalism or as an agricultural economist, has come a long way since he became MP for Kingston and Surbiton in 1997 after three recounts.

He has held a series of frontbench roles under different Lib Dem leaders. He was the chair of campaigns and communications after Clegg was elected party leader and was shadow foreign affairs spokesman before the 2010 general election.

The 46-year-old married father of one grew up in Nottingham and lived with his maternal grandparents after both his parents died – his solicitor father when he was four and his mother, a teacher, when he was 15.

He went to Oxford University, where he gained a first-class degree in philosophy, politics and economics, graduating in 1988 and joining the Lib Dems as an adviser six months later. He would leave four years later to to work as a management consultant until he became an MP.

Before becoming an MP Davey received awards from the Royal Humane Society and the chief constable of the British Transport police in 1994 for rescuing a woman from the path of an oncoming train at Clapham Junction. He speaks French, Spanish and German, and supports Notts County FC.